Maybe that’s how VW are testning emissions - let the trailer do the work 
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Yup… film it going forwards and play it backwards…
Not hard at at all
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That’s not how they did it… they actually made the “trailer” out of a small car, and hid a driver in there.
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Yup… that would work too
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That was dang cool… A few pusher trailers were built for electric cars. Going forward that is. I’ve thought about building a woodgas pusher trailer a few times but working out all the problems seem to be a bit much. 
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Good evening all from the character building north, of southern Manitoba. Minus 20C presently, forecast to be minus 28 in the morning, with a windchill of minus 41. That said, that’s not exceptional weather for this time of year, minus 35 or 38 would cause some complaints - this night will be one of the coldest so far. It’s been one of the warmest winters ever, even some rain in January and February, which is unheard of. A few crows have been sighted, they never appear here until the end of March for the spring thaw.
Definitely a different approach to wood gas condensation is needed in this environment.
Believe it or not though, by summer I can grow decent tobacco and corn, long days, and good over night temperatures, but planting dates are critical.
I will be using some of that solar energy stored in mother nature’s extreme long life batteries tonight, and thinking about the warmer days to come… 
Ps, - no expectations of school being cancelled,
Garry Tait, Manitoba
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Update, it’s actually minus 31. That makes it the coldest morning of the winter so far, and possibly the whole winter, the way things are going. And I forgot to plug the car in last night, thank goodness for synthetic motor oil. Frost doesn’t want to come off windshields easily, seats get hard, tires feel kinda square till they roll a half mile or so. Beautiful sunny morning though, and the days are getting longer now. In 2 months the ground will be thawed, and it will be warm weather work time.
-One major advantage of such cold is wood splits far better below minus 10 or 20, white poplar (trembling aspen) can be split in 4 foot cordwood lengths with a single blow from a 3 lb axe. And no working up a sweat, and zero bugs, no dirt on the wood. Real wood splitting and felling weather.
Garry Tait, Manitoba
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Hi guys; You all know I’m an old man. When they put a black container with wires to a motor to start cars and through away the crank, I knew they had lost me. How ever, somewhere along the line with the advent of this things call the computer, they had a"KNOCK SENSOR". This allowed the computer to advance the spark until the knock sensor registered a knock or pre-ignition. Then it retarded slightly. That sensor was a very good thing for woodgas because the woodgas has a higher octane and doesn’t know / ping until the engine is advanced further than it could be on petro. Thus that would handle our entire problem with mechanically advancing the spark. DO CARS USE A KNOCK SENSOR ANY MORE??
New subject; I HATE ethanol in my gasoline. There I said it. Now that the price of gas has dropped below /$4 a gallon, I decided to treat my truck to a couple of tanks full of Premium with NO ETHANOL. I got 2 miles per gallon less that on ethanol gas. WHAT IS WITH THAT?
THIRD SUBJECT; Hmm Can’t remember what it was. Took to long to type the first two. Maybe it was the fact that my truck road like a lumber wagon with no springs today. Tires are stiff and the shocks are stiff and the roads are less that is desirable ( crappy ) TomC
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Rough ride: my air bags leak like crazy in cold weather, but not when it’s warm . . . my brain tends to do the same thing!
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Thanks for the weather report, Garry. Pretty much the same here at 12959, -10* F this am. Saturday’s forecast -25F (-31C is -24F) with a high of -2F. We got 6" of snow here night before last. In my hometown of Tupper Lake, NY got so little snow this year the ski slope never opened and they are called the Tiptop town in the Adirondacks. Lake elevation 1565’ msl No snow making equip there. Been the strangest winter in all my days.
Tom, your not alone, I had something to add but it’s gone now. Might remember it later.
I remember now, the elevation of Mount Morris (ski slope) is 3165’msl.
pepe
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Yes, most modern cars have them. The 90s Dakotas are unusual that they don’t have knock sensors.
Premium has more octane but also less energy. Ethanol also raises the octane and lowers the energy. If your engine doesn’t require Premium there’s no benefit to it. What you want is some of the 87 octane advertised “ethanol free”, I see it often driving through east Tennessee. That’ll get the best mileage and store longer in a container.
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Who said were too old too learn,high test and low octane fuel characteristics,that is one i never new before today.Its going down near zero tonight, getting close too peek winter anyway,that should help.
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Thank you Chris I saw several people read my post and liked it but no one was taking me serious and answering my question. So if most of us still have the knock sensor ( pezio crystal) then possibly we aren’t needing the manual distributor advance as much.
Up here all you can get without ethanol is premium. I use it in everything that I don’t run on a regular bases so when I do want to run something it is not all gummed up. It was costing me a small fortune to mow my lawn. Always use the premium in that because we never know when the first snow will fall and the mower goes in the barn for the stay.
Again thank you. TomC
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most of what I have come across tom the computer does the advancing the knock says stop that hurts.
and I also make special gas runs for all the yard equipment I have replaced too many fuel lines and carb cleanings drive one nuts. soo glad to see 87 no ethanol here only one place so far .
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So then the question comes down to how do we change the sensors that ARE guiding the spark to just the knock sensor so we can get the timing going until the knock sensor says "uncle"TomC.
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Hey Tom forever how much you know sports think of it this way.
Each modifing trimming sensor like the O2, Baro, Map, knock are like the line judges. They have to work within the rule book written into the look-up tables in the processor.
So the best way would be to rewrite that rule book. This is what the chip swappers used to do. What EEPROM reprogramming does. Even what some of the hot-rod (“for racing off road use only!”) add on filter boxes do.
Or . …
Go buy off that line judge to look the other way. Turn a blind eye. Out right lie on his report. This is the sensor emulating/spoofing approach.
Heck of a lot easier to do this on a factory “flex-fuel” vehicle looking for an alcohol % in the fuel and having much wider possible ranges look-up tables built in already…
These systems began in the mid-90’s.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Hi Steve; Glad to hear from you. I was afraid when you close your thread you were deserting us.
I’ve set here for over an hour trying to make a case for more use of the knock sensor but in the end I’ve decided the present computer tables are probably fine. Even though we have changed the rules of the game by going from petro to woodgas. We are going from a lower octane fuel to a higher octane fuel. That means the woodgas will allow more advance before knocking occurs, but by that time other sensors such a manifold pressure, engine RPM, throttle position have maxed and prevent more advance. Thus never getting to where the knock sensor plays a part.
Dam, I hate it when my second thought catches up with my first thought and I find I have been wrong.TomC
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Tom I think for us GM guys a good start would be to figure out how to bypass the overdrive retard. Did you ever do a gear change? I have 4.10 gears and a big block so I hope I can use overdrive, time will tell.
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